The Center on Transnational business and the Law focuses on the legal and public policy issues faced by businesses that operate across borders in today's increasingly global economic environment.

The Center organizes conferences and lectures, encourages research, and hosts visiting scholars. A robust outreach effort helps to identify contemporary issues and developments relevant to transnational business and commercial undertakings in the contemporary marketplace. We then work to bring together corporate executives, private practitioners, government officials, students, and scholars with the aim of promoting thoughtful and timely discussion and analysis of some of the most important legal problems.

Professors Barry E. Carter and David P. Stewart are the Center's directors. It has a modest budget and is supported by the Office of Transnational Programs.

Recently, the Center organized a day-long conference on "The Evolution of Economic Sanctions: Increasingly Financial, Multilateral, and Robust." It did this in conjunction with the Georgetown Journal of International Law, as well as an earlier conference that explored a range of legal issues regarding Corporate Social Responsibility and the Alien Tort Statute in light of the Supreme Court's consideration of the Kiobel case. The Center also sponsored a conference on Transparency in International Arbitration and one on the 2010 UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts.

The Center also hosted speeches and discussion by the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Commerce and by a top Obama Administration trade official, a public meeting of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Private International Law (Prof. Stewart is a member), and several public meetings of the Sanctions Subcommittee (which Prof. Carter chairs) of the Department of State's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy.

Among the Center's current efforts are projects related to financial and trade sanctions, privacy and personal data protection in trans-border contexts, proof of foreign law in international litigation, increasing U.S. exports, and encouraging investment in the United States.

The Center's activities are open to J.D. and LL.M. students, business executives, private practitioners, government officials and scholars. These activities provide unique opportunities to explore the legal and practical dimensions of issues of current importance to international business, governments and lawyers.

October 2013

How to Contact Us:

Center on Transnational Business and the Law
Georgetown University Law Center
600 New Jersey Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20001-2075